Tweet The US Treasury has announced that it is extending its Geographical Targeting Orders to identify purchasers of luxury real estate properties in six areas in the US. The GTOs require title insurance companies to identify the natural persons behind shell companies used to pay all cash for high-end residential real estate. A Special Agent with […]
Tweet The questions and answers I’ve been asked the most in 2016 about China: Q: How much money has been removed from China in proceeds of corruption? A: According to the Bank of China, way over US$120 Billion or CAD$160 Billion between the years 1995-2008. China appears to have quit sharing data officially after 2011 […]
Tweet The G20 agrees to cooperate over asset recovery and tracking down wanted foreign nationals implicated in financial crimes The G20 released its statement on September 5, 2016, and a large part of it indicates that the leaders of the world are becoming concerned with financial crime, including money laundering, terrorist financing and tax evasion. […]
Tweet More scrutiny in US for real estate The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced that it is expanding its program to identify persons who may be hiding assets in residential properties in the US. The expansion adds additional cities to what are called the area for Geographic Targeting Orders (GTO). Title insurance agents in GTO […]
Tweet New York real estate developer being sued for $18 billion for accepting alleged proceeds of corruption from foreigners who were known PEPs According to an article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, real estate developers in New York are being sued for accepting proceeds of corruption from politically exposed persons (PEP). The plaintiffs are […]
Tweet Former UN President Charged The former United Nations (“UNâ€) President of the UN General Assembly, John Ashe, the UN Deputy Ambassador, Francis Lorenzo, a Chinese foreign national billionaire, Ng Lap Seng (also known as David Ng) and two of his associates were charged in New York with various offenses over an alleged bribery scheme. Two […]
Tweet How is Some Money Moved from China? Often with Smurfs and Structuring. I am often asked how Chinese foreign nationals who have immigrated to the US, China, or EU, or are attempting to, move millions of dollars in funds to other countries unimpeded when there are Chinese banking regulations (commonly called currency controls) that […]
Tweet Whopping $150 Billion Stolen from Nigeria in 10 Years Nigeria’s new President, Muhammadu Buhari, today said that the government believes that its officials have stolen approximately US$150 billion from the state in the past ten years.  In anti-money laundering law, high ranking government officials with access to state property and assets are politically exposed persons […]
Tweet US and Canada move up on the terrorism threat index 2014 and thus far in 2015, have been marked by a dramatic increase in terrorist incidents and in the number of countries that have been pulled into terrorist activity and for which financial institutions have been used for terrorist financing. Western countries are becoming […]
Tweet PEPs from China According to this article in the Vancouver Sun, two Canadian banks opened and maintained a bank account for politically exposed persons from China who are now alleged to have laundered $900,000 in proceeds of crime from China to Canada and the US. The two politically exposed persons are Shilan Zhao (趙世è˜) and […]